


everlong

by ndnickerson



Series: everlong [2]
Category: Nancy Drew - Carolyn Keene
Genre: Angst, Cancer, Children, Emotional, F/M, Married Couple, Married Sex, Medical Procedures, Past Character Death, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-04
Updated: 2013-09-04
Packaged: 2017-12-25 14:22:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/954147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ndnickerson/pseuds/ndnickerson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>missmars13's request for nancy drew summerfest 2013 was: "I want to see Nancy diagnosed with the cancer that she lost her mother to and how she, Ned and Carson react. Maybe she has kids and is afraid to leave them like her mother left her." I did tweak it slightly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	everlong

**Author's Note:**

> Story contains language, adult situations/sex, and angst. See the summary. A lot of angst. Also, it spoils all the major plot points of breathe out (so i can breathe you in), which comes before this story.

Monday.

On a normal workday, Nancy couldn't wait to get out of bed, to get to work and make some progress on her ongoing investigations. The office had been closed on Friday, though, and she had finished the majority of her outstanding work; all she had left was a cold case that frustrated her every time she picked it up.

She was awake when her alarm went off anyway, though. Ned had dropped a kiss on her forehead before he had rolled out of bed, going for his morning run. She had opened one eye to see what time it was, and that had been thirty minutes ago. She hadn't been able to sleep again.

If she was lucky, though, she would be able to time it so that she would be in the shower when her husband came home...

But her stomach felt upset. She thought back to what she had eaten for dinner the night before as she winced and climbed out of bed. She had cleaned out the refrigerator and it had been a leftovers night. Andrew, their ten-year-old son, had handily finished off the last serving and a half of chicken fettuccine alfredo; Rina, their six-year-old daughter, had almost finished her bowl of chicken noodle soup. Will was three years old, and he had only been able to have mashed potatoes with his chicken nuggets because Nancy had made sure Andrew didn't see them. Ned had swiped a spoonful of them anyway, though, to eat with his leftover meatloaf. At least she would only have one teenaged boy in the house at a time; she couldn't imagine if both Will and Drew were eating everything they saw at the same time. Drew already had Ned's bottomless appetite, and she was sure Will would be the same.

And Nancy... Nancy hadn't been hungry last night. She had made herself a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, but she hadn't even been able to finish it.

In the shower, with a terrible feeling in her stomach, she gave herself a quick breast exam, but she didn't find any new lumps or changes. That made her feel more relieved than anything. She had probably caught some kind of stomach bug. She was okay.

Her doctor had told her that she didn't need to start having mammograms quite yet, but Nancy had lost her mother to breast cancer, and she was hypersensitive to the idea that she would be more susceptible to it as a result. Dr. Karam had told her it would only needlessly expose her to radiation, and her insurance wouldn't cover her for it until she was forty years old, anyway.

Which wouldn't be too long, Nancy thought to herself as she stepped out of the shower and surveyed herself in the mirror. She and Ned had married once she had finished her undergraduate work at Emerson, and three years later, Andrew had come along. Their life together was a good one. After six months at the academy and two years on patrol, Nancy had put in her application to become a special agent with the Illinois State Police, and Ned had been a lot less anxious about her job.

He would have been even more anxious, she was sure, if not for their... connection.

While they had both been students at Emerson, Nancy and Ned had been exposed to an experimental chemical compound that had left them mentally connected to each other. For a while they had been able to keep it secret; only they and the researcher in charge of the experiment had known. Then the people in charge had found out, and had tried to reverse the exposure and take away the ability.

That had worked. At first. Then the ability had come back to them; whatever had been done to reverse it had only lasted temporarily.

That had been fifteen years ago. For almost half Nancy's life, she had been able to silently communicate with the man she loved, and he with her. It was easier when they were in physical contact, but at any point during the day, if she wanted to, she could concentrate and _feel_ him, what he was thinking about, what he was doing. She had been able to feel him doing that mental check on her often, when she was in the academy and working as a patrol officer.

What she had realized, thanks to their connection, was that he loved her so, so much, so deeply, that any threat to her made him react as though he himself were being threatened. He didn't doubt her abilities or how good she was at her job. What scared him was everything else, everything he didn't know. He had promised her when she had told him what she wanted to do that he would never hold her back, but what had touched her even more deeply was seeing how infinite, how consuming his love for her was.

Only once she had seen into him that way had she ever been able to love him that way in return. She had never regretted that decision. Once she had been able to see inside him, once they had been connected so intimately, not being physically intimate with him seemed foolish—and Nancy felt sorry for Bess and George, who had never known that kind of connection with their own partners. Nancy's husband knew exactly how she wanted to be stroked and kissed and touched, and she knew the same. She couldn't be afraid to tell him, because when they were connected that way, they couldn't hide anything from each other, and in truth they didn't want to. If what they were doing hurt or was unpleasant for the other person, they just stopped.

They were connected most deeply in their sleep, when they dreamed. Every now and then they didn't connect, but they had learned how to dream together. If the dream became sexual, they often woke already grinding together, partially wrapped around each other.

It was probably fortunate, Nancy thought to herself as she began to dress for the day, that their children hadn't inherited the ability. Nancy and Ned were very, very careful to never use their ability in an obvious way, or any way that might raise suspicion. Sometimes it couldn't be helped, and they had to blame it on a "hunch" or some fleeting "feeling," but no mysterious men in black had come to their workplaces or their home asking any questions. They were most likely to engage in that strange silent communication in the privacy of their bed. She had always found their connection incredibly intimate, and relying on it when their mouths were otherwise engaged just made sense. She would have been mortified, though, if the connection she had felt with each of her children had gone both ways—if they had been aware of what their parents were doing behind closed doors, in a way far more explicit than just overhearing something.

It made sense, she supposed. She had carried each of their children inside her for nine months; they had been a part of her, and while she didn't sense them the same way she sensed her husband, they still knew when Andrew had a hard day at school, when Rina fell on the playground and skinned her knee.

They had felt each of them out about it, very tentatively, just asking—but the communion apparently went only one way. Nancy and Ned could feel an echo of what their children felt, but their children didn't go the other way.

Nancy couldn't imagine how she would have impressed on them how terribly, terribly important it was that they never tell anyone else in their lives about it or use it where they could be caught. All three of their children were incredibly smart, but they were also very curious. They had just accepted that sometimes Nancy brought Ned a beer before he ever asked for it aloud, or that sometimes Ned came home with flowers for his wife if she had been through a particularly rough or trying day at work.

Ned came in when Nancy was just finishing up her makeup. He had already stripped his sweat-soaked t-shirt off and tossed it into the hamper, and although she was still feeling distracted by the pain in her stomach—the medicine she had taken hadn't quite kicked in yet, but she was hopeful—she still gazed at him as he started the water, then began to strip down. She found him even more handsome than she had when they had first started dating, which was incredible; he was the most attractive man she had ever met, and that had never changed. The gold of his wedding band flashed on his finger as he felt the water temperature.

Then he glanced up at her, seeing the small appreciative smile on her lips. _Still feeling bad?_

_Yeah. It'll be okay._

_Hope you feel better soon._

Thanks to some bizarre masochistic impulse Nancy didn't fully understand, when she went downstairs she took out a roll of prepackaged dough and put cinnamon rolls in the oven as soon as it was preheated. The thought of eating anything at all made her nervous, even something so delicious and decadent as a cinnamon roll fresh out of the oven, and she sipped her coffee before she woke their children up.

Andrew was tall for his age; he had his father's dark hair and strong jaw and Nancy's blue eyes, and while he was lanky, Ned had been the same. Ned had grown into his frame at the end of middle school and beginning of high school, but Drew wasn't quite there yet. Drew's coordination and speed meant he excelled at all the sports he tried, and once he had the muscles to back it up, she knew he would be incredible. He had only needed to start wearing glasses the year before, and she saw his black wire-rims folded neatly on the nightstand beside his alarm clock. His room was relatively tidy save a few rumpled sleeping bags; his best friends had stayed over on Saturday night, and Nancy had been happy to let Ned supervise their video game playing and feed their voracious appetites with soda and delivery pizza. The Lego model Ned and Drew were working on was perched safely atop Drew's bookcase, well away from his younger siblings' clumsier hands.

Caterina was their middle child, their only daughter. Nancy's mother had been named Catherine and Ned's grandmother was named Carina, but they only called their daughter by her full name when she was in trouble. Instead she was usually just Rina, and her silky pale-gold hair looked the way Nancy's had in her youth, before it had begun to darken to strawberry-blonde. She bounded out of bed when Nancy told her that they would be having cinnamon rolls for breakfast, her dark eyes shining in anticipation. When her elementary school had held a career day, Rina had announced her intentions to become a doctor—she had been fascinated by the pediatrician mother who had come to speak to the class. Nancy knew Rina would probably change her mind fourteen more times before her next birthday, but Rina had always been smart for her age. Whenever she saw a doctor on any of the cartoons she watched, or a commercial for a medical drama that came on well past her bedtime, she watched with rapt attention.

Will was their last baby, and Nancy had been relieved when he finally started transitioning out of his twos. He was curious about _everything_ , especially anything his parents told him was off-limits—and Carson, Nancy's father, had laughed when he heard that, saying he _definitely_ didn't remember any small toddlers who had been very much like that. Will had a tender heart, though, and a few of his teddy bears still bore makeshift slings from the day before, when he and Rina had played stuffed-animal-hospital with Rina's miniature plastic stethoscope and "shots" kit.

Nancy loved each of them so much, and while she liked to tease Ned that she had never agreed to spend the rest of her life in a house full of guys, she wouldn't have traded him or either of their sons for anything. Their life was busy, and after work they had coordinated a schedule of scout meetings, soccer practice, and music lessons with Hannah, but their children were happy and healthy, and they didn't want for much.

Will plowed ahead of her after she woke him up, his dark hair sticking up in all directions and his dark eyes alight with potential mischief. He was so small, so fragile.

And she was struck again with the realization. Will was about the same age Nancy had been when she lost her mother.

Reflexively Nancy's hand gravitated to her belly. She would be fine, she told herself. She went for all her check-ups regularly; she exercised, and she stuck to a healthy diet whenever Hannah wasn't cooking.

That still didn't mean it wouldn't happen to her, too.

Nancy dismissed her worry, knowing that if it lingered, Ned would sense it. She poured glasses of juice and milk, distributing the icing-laden cinnamon rolls, and had Ned's coffee ready for him when he walked into the kitchen, dressed and ready to go.

She was fine. She would be fine.

Eventually the pain medication kicked in, and her awareness of that uncomfortable tightness in her belly receded enough for her to get some work done. She kept hoping she had just eaten something that wasn't agreeing with her, but the stomach bug persisted. At the end of the day she was dragging, and glad to depart, for once. She loved spending time at home with her family, but she often stayed late, just checking on a few more leads or chasing down another clue.

She had just climbed into her car when her phone chirped, alerting her that she had a new message. _Want me to pick up dinner?_

_That would be great._

Ned brought home a bucket of fried and grilled chicken with sides and a child's meal for Will; since Ned and Drew were usually able to finish off a bucket of chicken between them, he had made sure to buy the larger meal, complete with dessert. Drew heaped his plate with chicken and servings of mashed potato and corn, and two biscuits. Rina accepted a large serving of macaroni and cheese with her potatoes and corn, and one grilled drumstick, which she eyed with some skepticism. Will's meal consisted of a chicken sandwich, green beans, applesauce, and milk, which he tackled with relish. Nancy served herself a piece of grilled chicken and a spoonful of macaroni and cheese, then eyed her plate, wondering if she could eat it all. The roast beef sandwich she had eaten for lunch had been good, but she hadn't been able to finish it.

_You okay?_ "I know it's not up to Hannah's standards," Ned said, switching to audible, glancing over at her.

Nancy gave him a hesitant smile. "Guess I'm not very hungry yet."

"Maybe a biscuit?"

"Oooh!" Rina said, making a grabby-hands gesture at her older brother. Drew swallowed a large bite of chicken before he passed her a biscuit. She immediately tore off a chunk of it, letting out a loud, happy groan as she tasted it.

"Will, eat your green beans."

Will was eagerly finishing off his applesauce. Between spoonfuls he talked about his day at preschool, while Rina talked about the book their teacher had read to them and Drew groaned about the spelling test he would need to study for. When Nancy volunteered to help him with it, he brightened a little.

Will's bedtime was early; soon after dinner was over, he asked his mother if maybe he could get a puppy. Their next-door neighbor had a new Golden Retriever with floppy ears and a friendly face, and Will was convinced that if he could just get close enough to pet it, it would be his best friend forever.

Nancy listened to him move from that to learning about watches and how to read them in preschool that day, and it took him a while to read her watch, but he almost got it right. She told him she was proud of him and he beamed. Once his bath was over and his fine dark hair was toweled dry, Nancy tugged his fire-truck pajamas over his head and tucked him into bed with a large floppy clownfish stuffed animal, his current favorite. Drew's hobby was models, but Will hadn't yet graduated to building things on any major scale. Instead his short plastic shelves were crowded with tiny round people, fit for driving his primary-colored chunky fire trucks, tow trucks, and police cars.

"I love you, sweetheart."

Will's face split with a wide grin, and he sat up, looping his arm around Nancy's neck. She returned his hug, feeling how small he was as she embraced him. "Love you, Mama," he told her, and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

"Sleep tight, baby."

Will nodded, and she turned back to see him, his face shadowed but still visible in the dim glow of his night-light. "Grawr," he growled at his closet door, warning any monsters behind it that he was ready for them.

Ned, Drew, and Rina were at the kitchen table, which had been cleared and wiped down in her absence, schoolbooks spread out in front of them. Ned glanced up at her, and without asking he rose, offering her his seat, pointing out which word he was quizzing Andrew about. Rina had been listening intently to the lesson, and though she squirmed in protest when Ned swept her up and took her for her own bath, she didn't resist too much.

Drew pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Want to split a cookie?" he asked.

Nancy glanced over at the bag of cookies, still soft in the middle, the chocolate chips barely maintaining their shape. "Sure," she murmured, and grabbed one; she gave Drew the larger half. Then, of course, they both needed some milk.

Finally it was Drew's bedtime. Nancy knew he planned on staying up to study just a little while longer, but finally she and Ned were able to cuddle on the couch together in front of the television set. They couldn't entirely relax, because Rina might ask for a glass of water or Will might beg to sleep in their bed if he heard any thunder while he was trying to sleep, but Nancy felt herself relax anyway. Ned wrapped his arm around her shoulders as she slumped against him, her eyelids already drifting down before the show they usually watched together had even started.

"Feeling better?"

"Mmm. Kinda," she murmured without opening her eyes.

Ned brought his hand up and stroked it down her face, and when he kissed her temple, Nancy felt the intensity in a way that only came with physical contact. Ned suffused her in the warmth of his love and concern, then moved her into his lap, cuddling her against him the way he would have held their daughter if she had been in the grips of some bad dream. She let out her breath in a soft sigh. His love felt like draping a soft warm blanket around her, and for the first time all day, at home with the people she loved best in the world, she felt safe.

_I love you._

_I love you too, sweetheart. Shhh._

Ned carried his heart on his sleeve. On their wedding day, every day he had ever been in public with her, his affection and love for her were clear. Nancy had always been more guarded. She understood that for him, there was no shame in showing or telling anyone how he felt about her. But for Nancy, sharing it only with him felt more natural. No one else, after all, could ever understand what they shared, only them. If Ned wanted to hold hands with her in public, she did only because she knew it made him happy. She didn't do it for anyone else. She only did it for him.

Andrew was like Nancy; he tended to keep to himself, and after his younger sister had been born, he had become even more responsible and cautious. Caterina was adventurous, and she couldn't turn down a dare. Will was like his daddy; he looked just like Ned, but Nancy saw herself in the way Will just wouldn't back down, the way he tackled any challenge head-on.

But Ned was like that, too. Will would defend anything that was defenseless, and the first time Rina had been involved in a playground altercation, both Nancy and Ned had needed to answer several questions about why it was wrong for her to fight someone who had been fighting one of her friends. She was fiercely loyal, just like her brothers.

Nancy hated that they had never met their maternal grandmother, that her mother hadn't been around to see her grow up. She had worried that she wouldn't know _how_ to be a mother, and the first few weeks after they brought Drew home from the hospital had been tough, but Nancy and Ned had figured it out together.

Ned had been completely in love with their children, practically from the moment she had told him she was pregnant. He was devoted to them, just as they were devoted to both Nancy and Ned. And Nancy couldn't imagine having this life, this life she had never dreamed was possible for her, with anyone else, with any of the other men she had ever dated. None of them had come anywhere near having the connection with her that Ned did.

As she fell asleep on the couch, in his arms, she was distantly aware that he was aroused—but her stomach was still distantly hurting, and she didn't want to make him sick. He caressed her cheek in answer, checking for a fever in her skin, but when he didn't find one, he relaxed a little. Maybe her stomach bug was almost over.

But it had been a while since they had been able to share that kind of intimacy, and when Ned helped her to their room, then planted the softest kiss just beneath her left earlobe, she shivered at the frisson of arousal it sent through her sex. Their connection had never been entirely chaste; it had taken Ned a while to get past the knowledge that their first shared dream had been a sexual fantasy he was having about her.

That had only been the first time, though. Sometimes Ned slipped into a dream without her and she became aware when she found him having sex with a dream version of her on his desk at work, or in the back of a patrol car. That one had been pretty common, after he had seen her patrol car for the first time.

The lightest brush of his fingertips or lips against that tender hollow just beneath each earlobe was often enough to make her wet. With a more deliberate stroke, the arousal he woke in her became insistent, demanding satisfaction.

Tonight, though... he would have to settle for a dream. She just couldn't find the energy to have physical sex with him, even when he offered to do all the work.

"Love you," he whispered against that soft hollow.

Nancy let out a soft pleased hum. "Love you," she murmured, nestling close to him.

\--

Dr. Karam glanced up from her file as she walked into the exam room, where Nancy sat on the table waiting. "Good afternoon," she said with a brief smile. Nancy had been a patient at her practice for eleven years, and was accustomed to her almost-brusque manner. She was a great physician, and unlike some other doctors Nancy had seen, she didn't seem to walk in having already decided what was wrong before she even spoke to Nancy.

"So, tell me about what's going on."

Nancy swallowed before Dr. Karam reached up and began gently feeling the lymph nodes in her neck. "My stomach's been hurting, and my appetite has been low. I thought I had a stomach bug, but when I took the medications the PA called in for me, I didn't feel any better," she said. "Then last week I started bleeding when I wasn't on my period... and I thought maybe I was starting menopause, a little early? But I didn't think it was supposed to hurt like this."

"Are you experiencing cramps, or constant pain?" Dr. Karam gestured for her to lie back on the table, then touched her hip.

"It's more like a constant pain."

"Can you show me where?"

Nancy pointed it out, and wasn't surprised when Dr. Karam indicated that she wanted to give Nancy a precautionary pelvic exam, even though she wasn't due for one for another few months. While Nancy put her heels in the stirrups and took a deep breath, Dr. Karam asked her if she had changed her diet recently or noticed any other changes.

Nancy could see a change in her expression after she finished the exam, as she stripped her gloves off and tossed them into the waste container. "I'm going to send in my assistant to take some blood," she said. "We'll run a pregnancy test, just in case, although that's just to eliminate the obvious. Have your periods been consistent otherwise?"

Nancy nodded, her heart beating faster. She felt like she was beginning to choke. "Is there... what do you think is going on?"

Dr. Karam gave her another brief smile. "I'll most likely know more once the blood test comes back, but I'd like to go ahead and schedule an ultrasound. If you are pregnant, well, you'd be going for one anyway."

Then Dr. Karam glanced down at her chart. "When was the last time you felt _good_?"

"What do you mean?"

"Fully rested, awake—just totally healthy."

Nancy thought back. Even before her stomach pain had become too much to ignore, she had blamed her long hours at her job for her general exhaustion. "I... I don't know, it's been a few months. I was afraid that maybe it was a sign that I... was getting sick, but every time I did an self-exam, I didn't feel anything different."

Dr. Karam nodded. "Because you have a family history of breast cancer, you're at a higher risk for ovarian cancer," she said.

Nancy's entire body seemed to go cold in that moment; she felt clammy, unsteady.

Dr. Karam took a deep breath. "I'm not saying that's what's going on here, but the fact that your mother's cancer was apparently so aggressive, that she was so young and it went undetected for so long is... well, it's not ideal. The good news is that if you do have an ovarian tumor, if we can detect it and remove it early, you have a good chance at survival. The bad news is that ovarian cancer is hard to detect early, and we might need to be more aggressive about going after it. But, again—I really don't want you to start worrying about this, okay? Once the tests come back, once we do an ultrasound, we'll know better what we're up against. I want to be honest with you, though. The bleeding you reported isn't—that's not what I would expect, at your age. You shouldn't be going through menopause quite yet."

Dr. Karam gave her another one of those brief smiles. "We're going to figure this out, though. Okay?"

Nancy nodded. "So... if it's not..." She had to force the words out; her lips felt numb, and she felt like she was on the verge of tears.

When Nancy couldn't finish, Dr. Karam patted Nancy's hand. "I really don't want to make you worried or upset over nothing, but I also don't want to play Pollyanna Sunshine and ignore something that could be a problem. We could find a perfectly benign growth or some other reason for your symptoms, and fix the problem with some non-invasive surgery."

"But if it is... _that_..." Nancy swallowed. "Radiation?"

Dr. Karam frowned a little. "Again, I don't wish to alarm you. But no, for that diagnosis we wouldn't use radiation treatments. Surgery, possibly to remove your ovaries and fallopian tubes. If we find evidence that the diseased cells have spread, we might do a full hysterectomy. I wouldn't want to go that far because removing your ovaries would start menopause early, and hormone therapy would help the symptoms, but ideally we would make the surgery as minor as possible. We might follow with chemotherapy, not radiation treatment." On Nancy's questioning look, Dr. Karam said gently, "Injected treatment. That's the difference. Again, until I know more, all of this is very premature."

_Nancy?_

She could feel her husband's voice in her head, and the tears began to spill over then. The alarm and concern in his voice were enough to provoke them. Even though he was at work, he was responding to the anxiety and fear he could tell she was feeling.

"Please, please, Mrs. Nickerson. Please calm down."

_I need you._

_I'm on my way._

Nancy took a deep breath that ended in a sob. "How soon?" she choked out.

"Please calm down." Dr. Karam was obviously agitated; Nancy was usually stoic, but this was her worst fear, her worst fear in the world, and she just couldn't hold herself up anymore. "If you're asking when I'll know for sure—I promise you, I will call you as soon as your blood test results come back. The ultrasound will also help."

"Can we do it today?" Nancy took the tissue the doctor offered her and wiped her eyes, aware she was probably smearing her mascara. Her voice was trembling. "The ultrasound?"

Dr. Karam paused, then pressed her lips together. "Possibly. Please wait here. Do you need some water?"

Nancy shrugged. She was trying to force herself to calm down, but it was almost impossible to even take a full breath. "Sure," she murmured.

For the sake of appearances, Nancy reached for her phone once the doctor was out of the room. When Ned answered his phone, she breathed his name.

"Baby, are you okay? Where are you?"

She told him the name of the practice with her eyes closed; while Ned could follow the link between them to where she was, as he had done before, it was better not to leave that doubt.

Just in case. Even now she could remember how terrifying those hours had been, when he had been kidnapped and she had been so afraid that they would kill him and she would never see him again. Instead they had used his kidnapping to lure her in, so they could "cure" both Nancy and Ned.

Nancy was still in her short exam gown, the inside of her elbow bandaged, when Ned arrived. He was following their link and would come right to her; she took a deep breath and opened the exam room door, barely stepping into the hallway so he could see her, so it wouldn't be so obvious.

The receptionist was marching after Ned, a stormy look on her face, but Ned was completely ignoring her. He covered those last few feet between them so quickly, and Nancy couldn't help letting out a small sob as he swept her up into his arms, holding her tight.

"Shhhh," he murmured, his lips against the crown of her head. _Shhh, shhh, baby. It's going to be all right. It'll be all right._

"Ned," she whimpered against his neck, clinging to him.

"Ma'am," the receptionist began. "Do I need to ask him to leave?"

"No," Nancy cried out. "Please, no, don't make him leave..."

The receptionist nodded once, frowning. Nancy was clearly upset, and she couldn't calm down—but it would be worse if she were alone.

Ned took her back into the exam room, still holding her, and when he sat down she pressed herself against him, her arms looped around his shoulders and her face pressed against his neck. He rubbed her back, shushing her, and she was crying too hard to speak.

"Shhh, baby. Shhhhh." _She's not sure? She needs to run some tests?_

_Yeah. But—_

And in that silence, all her fear and anxiety roared in. There were no words. There were too many words. And Ned was being strong for her, reassuring her that there was another explanation, another reason. The doctor would cure her. Her mother's diagnosis and death had been thirty years ago. They knew more now. They would be able to help her now. Or it was nothing, and she was worried for no reason at all.

Worried wasn't the word for what she was.

And at his core, deep in the heart of him, to where she had been able to look for so long now—that wasn't the word for what Ned was, either.

Slowly, slowly, she mastered herself again, but that almost felt worse. When a problem presented itself to her, she became focused. She wanted that problem solved. She wanted something to attack. She wanted a solution.

_She will do everything she can. You know that._

_I know._

When Dr. Karam entered the room again, Nancy straightened; the doctor didn't seem entirely surprised to find that she wasn't alone, and Nancy wondered if the disapproving receptionist was responsible. "Come with me, please," she said. "And you are?"

"Her husband. Ned."

Dr. Karam nodded. "They're ready for your ultrasound now. You've been through this before, so it shouldn't be very unusual."

Nancy had—but her last had been with Will, when she had still been pregnant. She had been in good health, but because she was over thirty years of age while she had carried him, Dr. Karam had kept a closer eye on that last pregnancy.

Nancy's anxiety level spiked as they walked into the ultrasound exam room, and Ned squeezed her hand reassuringly. _It's okay. It's okay._

Whenever the technician had narrated what they were seeing on the screen before, though, it had been a pleasant sight—the bend of Will's knee or the curve of his head, Rina with her fists curled near her face in what was almost a fighting stance, Drew's face serene with sleep. Now they would be using it to see inside her, and whatever they found, Nancy feared. She had worried about Will during her pregnancy, but that worry was nothing compared to this one.

The technician rubbed the cool gel onto Nancy's abdomen, then lifted the handheld imaging equipment. Instead of asking Nancy where she had felt the worst pain, the technician looked toward Dr. Karam, who directed her to the right place.

Nancy couldn't take her gaze from the monitor. She could still feel Ned's hand gripping hers, could feel him stroking her hair, but her gaze swam as she frantically studied the staticky black and white image, looking for anything wrong, even though she wasn't sure what it would look like. The pregnancy test Dr. Karam had talked about giving her was indeed just a precaution; Nancy and Ned had agreed that they didn't want any more children, and so she had asked for a tubal ligation soon after Will's birth.

While they didn't want any more children, if she had seen that familiar lighter kidney-shaped sac floating in her uterus, she would have felt incredibly relieved. Another child wasn't the ideal solution, but she would have wept with joy at that explanation for her pain—even though she feared that any pregnancy so unusual wouldn't end well.

But she didn't see another baby developing inside her. To be perfectly honest, she wasn't sure what she was seeing—but when the wand revealed a slight gradation, the technician glanced back at Dr. Karam, doing another pass. Nancy released a soft whimper, and Ned squeezed her hand a little tighter.

_Shhhh. Shhh. Calm down, sweetheart._

_I can't._

Ned leaned down, and Nancy closed her eyes as his lips brushed her temple. Dr. Karam had no way to know about their connection, unless she had just been carefully observing Nancy for the past ten years; she didn't know that when Ned's lips brushed Nancy's skin, Nancy felt the warmth and peace he was directing over her. The panic still clawed at her, and another tear slipped down her cheek, but it was a little better.

She had lived with that terrible fear, lingering at the back of her mind, that her mother might have passed on that horrifying birthright. She had lived with it for a long time.

Her mother had been a few years younger than she was. At least she had been able to see Drew and Rina and Will grow for a little while. At least she—

_Shhh. Nancy..._

The monitor was completely blurred by her tears. Nancy turned so she was facing Ned, and he cupped her cheek, his forehead touching hers. She could feel his breath, moving gently against her upper lip.

_Shhhh. Nan, I can't lose you. We won't lose you. We won't. Shhh..._

She sniffled and Ned made a soft distressed noise.

When they were back in the first exam room, they sat side by side on the table, Ned's fingers laced through hers, her head resting on his shoulder. She panicked, feeling like she was struggling fiercely against something she could never escape, and then she sank into something like shock again, the cycle repeating over and over. All the while, she just felt so much like she had run out of time. After all she and Ned had been through together, no matter how much she loved him and their children, she just wanted more time.

_Your time isn't over. I won't let it be over, Nan._

Nancy's lips turned up slightly in a humorless smile. She knew well that her husband would do everything in his power, that he would exceed his own strength, the limits of his own body, to do whatever he could for her. He would fight anything; he would do anything for her.

But sometimes there was nothing to do, no enemy to fight. His love alone, as strong as it was, wasn't enough to make her whole.

When Dr. Karam came into the room again, she gave Nancy and Ned another perfunctory smile, but her dark eyes were made darker with concern. "As I told you, I will contact you as soon as the blood test results have come back. I'll put a rush on them."

"And will the blood tests tell you for sure what's going on?" Ned's voice was far, far steadier than Nancy's would have been, and when she looked up at the doctor, it was with reddened eyes.

Dr. Karam swallowed. "The presence of protein CA one-twenty-five—CA for cancer antigen—in the blood might indicate that what we're looking at is in fact cancerous, but as you're pre-menopausal, Nancy, that antigen might be present in the blood for other reasons. We'll also screen your blood for pregnancy hormones. However, the only way for us to be positive will be a biopsy."

"Can we do that today?" Nancy asked, her voice muddied with tears.

Dr. Karam gave her an apologetic smile. "I'm afraid not. If the procedure involved skin, we could do it here, today; I would have been able to do that during the ultrasound. Since we need to go deeper, though, I'll need to set up a separate appointment for you."

"Soon?"

Dr. Karam nodded. "As soon as the doctor has an appointment available."

"And how soon after the biopsy will you know? Right after it's done? The same day?"

"It depends on the findings," Dr. Karam said. "The final results will most likely take a week. Again, I know that this is difficult, and I will make sure the test is run as quickly as possible."

Nancy nodded. Her head, her torso seemed to throb with nervous energy; the place that had been aching for almost a month now hurt even more, probably because she was concentrating on it so hard. "What's the best-case scenario?" she asked, wiping a few tears from her cheek.

"That the biopsy shows that the small mass we located on the ultrasound is just an echo or a shadow, or that the mass itself is benign."

At the word _mass_ , Nancy's stomach constricted. "So you did see something," she whispered, and Ned wrapped his arm around her, holding her tight to him.

Dr. Karam nodded reluctantly. "You're young," she said. "And if there's anything there, we found it early and it's small. Please focus on that. I know this is a shock."

But, in a way, it wasn't a shock. Not at all.

No matter when it would have happened, though, she knew one thing. It would always be too soon.

Neither of them could honestly contemplate returning to work, after that. Nancy was too distracted to clearly remember where the children would be, but she also didn't want to upset them, and in the condition she was in, that was all she could do.

After he called his work, Ned met Nancy at home. She had left her purse just inside the door from the garage, her keys beside it; Ned found her in front of the stove, staring blankly down at the cooktop, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"I need to start dinner," she murmured when Ned walked in.

Ned shook his head. "Go put on something comfortable," he told her. "I'll make dinner."

Nancy looked up at him, her eyes swimming. She couldn't say anything.

He slipped his arm around her. "Please," he whispered. "I know you're upset. We have time."

But they didn't. Not really.

She went back to their room and into the bathroom, to the neat vanity, the bottles of makeup and moisturizer and lotion, their toothbrushes, all of it lined up and orderly. Then she imagined what Ned would do, in the time after; whether he would leave them there, slowly fading and yellowing with time, or would he clean them out, prepare the space for someone new?

_Stop it,_ she told herself, but her eyes were filling with tears again.

Her father. Nancy's father had never really recovered from the loss of his wife. A silver comb and mirror set they had received as a wedding gift still stood on what was her side of the dresser, kept dusted and polished; when Nancy was young, once, she had gone into her father's room and picked up that comb. A few strands of pale blonde hair were still caught in its teeth, and more than the photographs, the clothes her father had saved, the other mementos—that had felt like something real, something her mother had held. As far as she knew, it was still in her father's room, waiting for a woman who would never come home.

Nancy took her makeup off, changing from her button-down and slacks into a loose, washed-thin Emerson t-shirt and sweatpants. She tied her hair back into a ponytail but had to wash her face again; she couldn't seem to stop crying, but she knew she would have to get herself back under control before their children came home.

Their children. Oh God, their children.

She glanced at the bed, and although she knew Ned wouldn't mind if she took a nap, she knew that he was anxious too. She returned to the kitchen and sat down at the round table they used for family meals and homework assignments.

"I know you're still feeling bad, so is there anything you might be able to eat?"

Nancy took a deep breath. "I... do we have any of that pot roast left?"

Ned checked the refrigerator thoroughly, then shook his head. He opened the freezer, a thoughtful frown on his face. "What about that vegetable beef soup my mom sent home last week?"

"That would be fine," Nancy murmured. "Make a big pot of rice to go with it, okay?"

Ned nodded, reaching for the filtered water pitcher before Nancy even fully realized she wanted a glass. He brought her a bottle of pain medication too, and Nancy gave him a wobbling, grateful smile.

It was only after the water had been put on to boil that Nancy looked up at him, tilting her head. He was facing away from her, and Nancy had been so consumed by her own anxiety and fear that it had drowned out what he was feeling. As soon as he had put the lid on the pot and set the timer, Nancy stood. Their children would be home soon; they didn't have much time.

"Come here," Nancy whispered, and when Ned turned to her, his face was a mask of misery that he barely had time to rearrange into a smile. She reached for his hand, guiding him to the couch.

When he sat down with her, she turned to look at him, and Ned took a deep breath. _What if I'd said that you had to go to the doctor when you told me you were feeling bad? What if..._

_Shhhh,_ she told him, cupping his face in her hands. _Three weeks wouldn't have mattered._

_I can't lose you._

He reached for her and she moved into his arms at the same time. They held each other hard, so hard it almost hurt, but neither of them wanted to loosen their grip or let go. He buried his face in her hair, and for the first time in a long time, she heard the soft hitches in his breathing that meant he was upset enough to cry.

_I can't lose you, Nan. I can't. I can't._

_Maybe it's nothing. Maybe..._

But the pain, the faint sensation of heaviness in her abdomen, was still there. Even though she wanted to believe that the biopsy would reveal she was worried about nothing, she couldn't bring herself to do it.

After all they had been through, after everything, the life she had built with him—to see it end like this. It felt senseless, meaningless. She had held her breath the year she had turned the age her mother had been, the oldest her mother ever had been, but she had made it through that year.

She had never wanted to let herself believe in anything so foolish, but a part of her had been hoping that she might make it to the milestones her mother had never seen: high school, graduation, weddings. Grandchildren, even. She could feel it slipping through her fingers, and what was worse, she knew exactly what losing her so early would do to her children.

But Ned, Ned would be lost.

He clung to her, and she told herself that she couldn't afford the luxury of letting her grief swallow her, but when she imagined that it might be one of the last times her husband ever held her, she began to cry again.

He was the other half of her. A part of her had never realized that whoever survived the other's death would forever be broken by it, left less than whole.

Losing her would break him, utterly. He adored her; he was devoted to her and their children, and she was his partner. He shared everything with her, the good and the bad, the frustrations and the celebrations.

Losing him wouldn't even leave her as half a person; she would be so much less than that. In so many ways, Ned completed her. He was her supporter, her biggest cheerleader, her greatest champion. He made sure every day that she realized how much he loved her, how important she was to him, and how glad he was to be with her—and in that silence, that stillness between them, she had let him know the same. He was her sounding board, and he kept her from going crazy by making sure she relaxed and let go every now and then, and he loved that she depended on him. Together, they were incredible.

Apart... oh, it had been so so very long since they had been apart, in any sense. He was a part of her, and she of him, and he would willingly give all of _himself_ , to see her survive.

And she would do the same for him.

_Forever won't be long enough._ His lips brushed her earlobe and Nancy shivered, sniffling through her congested nose. _To dream without you; to reach out and feel nothing..._

For a time, that ability had been lost. She knew how it felt to reach out and feel no one on the other side—or, worse, to wish so hard that she could feel him that she believed she almost could. At least he had been there, though. At least she had been able to call him, to talk to him, to feel his arms around her, even if that mental connection had been broken. But it had been so long that she didn't know how either of them would function without the other. It would be worse than losing a limb.

As much as it would hurt, she would give up that silent communion, if she could trade it for another year, another five, with him. She would give up so much to stay with him, with their children. She had so much she still wanted to do. To never see another autumn, another winter—or worse, to see just one more and _know_ it was the last; to feel that terrible birthright sap her strength and her will, to waste away in front of her children, to watch Ned lose the will to live as he watched her lose her own.

She had never seen her mother's death as a blessing. Never. But it could have been worse. She could have lost her in the blink of an eye, without a chance to ever say goodbye.

But how would she ever know what to say? What could she ever say to Andrew, to Caterina, to William, to make up for leaving them so soon? Or to Ned, to the other people she loved so much...

When the timer went off to let them know the rice had finished cooking, they were both crying. She followed him into the kitchen, keeping her arm wrapped around his waist or her palm against his side, wanting to keep in contact with him. It played in both their heads, in some strange loop, breathless, weightless.

_Maybe it hasn't come yet. Maybe there's still time. Still time. Please let there still be time._

\--

They decided not to talk to their children until they knew for sure that there was any reason to be worried. Drew, Rina, and Will already knew that Nancy wasn't feeling quite herself, but upsetting them when there was no need seemed needless and cruel. They didn't tell anyone else, either. As long as it stayed between them, as long as it wasn't spoken out loud, it felt like it wasn't quite real, that maybe it never would be.

The day of the biopsy, Ned took time off work and went with her; she was sedated for the procedure and wouldn't be able to drive after. She was woozy afterward, and asked if they could stop on the way home for ice cream. Ned, remembering with a pang all the times they had gone out on ice cream dates when they had been in high school, agreed. He had to help her eat it, because she had trouble directing the spoon all the way to her mouth, and when they came home he steered her to the bed, cleaned the smears of chocolate and ice cream from her chin, and helped her take off her shoes and wriggle out of her sweatpants.

He settled in the bed at her uninjured side, and she snuggled close to him. What was strange was that he could feel her thought processes, and he knew she thought she was coherent—but she wasn't. It was like she was insanely drunk.

The loss of inhibition didn't really change what she was thinking; it only made her more likely to speak it aloud, to tell him what he had let her keep quiet.

She licked her lips. "Will you get rid of it when I'm gone?"

Ned stroked her hair, his throat getting tight. "Get rid of what?"

And he saw it in his mind's eye because it was in hers. One of the images she associated with her mother was that silver comb and mirror set, and Ned knew it just as intimately as she did.

All her things. She meant all her things.

"Nan," he whispered, kissing her forehead. "No. No, baby, never. I'll keep all of you, all that was ever yours, all you ever touched. But I won't need to, because you're the one thing I couldn't live without. I can't let you go. I can't let you leave me here. Because all I'll want is to be with you."

She sniffled. "I don't want to leave," she whispered. "I'm so scared."

"I know," Ned whispered, pulling her to him, and she began to cry.

_Tell them about me. Tell them about us._

_Nan, you're not going anywhere. You're going to be fine. You have to be fine._

_And if I'm not? If it's spread, I might have a year. A_ year _. I won't see Drew get to high school. Will won't remember me. And Rina..._

"Nan, stop it," Ned whispered, his voice breaking. "No."

_What if I can't leave? What if I just get sicker and sicker and the pain is too much and I hurt you... if they remember me wasted, hollowed out..._

"Go to sleep," he whispered. "Baby, please, go to sleep. Shhhh. Stop it. You aren't thinking straight, and you're going to be okay. I know you're going to be okay. Shhhh."

He held her until she finally lost her grip on that fractured consciousness, her thoughts spiraling in even wider circles, the lingering effects of the sedation making her even more disoriented. Her armor, almost always in place, was thinned to nearly nothing. Ned kept stroking her hair, her tears soaking his sleeve, and she was too real, too warm and alive and breathing to leave him.

He couldn't imagine reaching out with his thoughts and feeling nothing on the other side, not anymore. Worse, he had understood what she had meant when she had said that maybe she wouldn't be able to leave. Maybe her body would be gone, but her thoughts would remain.

It was both a terrifying and a comforting thought—but he would never really know if he hadn't gone crazy, if he just wanted so badly for some part of her to remain that he made himself believe that she wasn't really gone. Regardless of what happened to her, if she did succumb—he knew that he would never again share his bed with anyone else, that she was the one, the only one. That wouldn't end with either of their deaths. It would never end. He would never move on.

But he could never believe that she would leave him, either. Never.

And when the doctor called with the results of the biopsy—Dr. Karam had told them it could take up to a week, depending, even though she had put a rush on the results—he would do whatever it took. He would beg, borrow, or steal to make sure she had the best treatment possible, if the worst were true.

He put his hand on her hip. The compound that had so long ago given him the ability to sense her thoughts, to feel so connected to her—oh, he would give anything if he could somehow gain the ability to heal her instead. He would give up everything to make her whole again.

But he was all too aware that nothing he could give would be enough. She was too dear to him, and she always had been.

As terrible as admitting it was, he didn't want to live without her. He would if he had to, but it would feel like penance for his every sin, to lose the person he loved more than life itself, to know that she was beyond his reach until he was able to join her again.

He didn't want to leave her alone, so when it was time for Hannah to arrive with their children, he dressed her in her loose sweatpants again and carried her to the living room couch, covering her in a soft throw. She was breathing evenly, and he gazed down at her, willing with all his heart that the doctor's message would be a good one.

Hannah knew only that Nancy had gone to the doctor's office for a short outpatient procedure, so she wasn't surprised to see Nancy conked out on the couch when she came in. The children were quieter than usual; Andrew was more withdrawn than he had been, and Hannah reported that Rina had been quicker to frustration and anger than usual that afternoon. Will was himself, though.

Ned supposed that they had been able to tell something more serious was wrong, even if they didn't know specifically what it was. Nancy and Ned had agreed to keep their lives as normal as possible, but Rina had commented on Nancy's reduced appetite. Ned thought it was because she was more detail-oriented; he wasn't sure if he would have noticed that at her age.

They were so smart, though. And even though Nancy had worried that she wouldn't be a good mother, in some strange way, to make up for the loss of her own mother, she was an incredible mother. Nancy had missed her so much that she gave them everything she wished she had had. She bandaged scraped knees, read bedtime stories and kissed foreheads, stayed up with them when they were sick and bathed them and fed them. If Will was afraid during a thunderstorm, she cuddled him up between her and Ned and made sure he felt safe. She poured out all the love she had for her own mother, all the love she had never been able to show her, on them.

And as soon as Will walked through the front door, he toddled over to Nancy. Before Ned could caution him against it, he gently patted her cheek. "Mama," he whispered.

"She's asleep," Ned told Will, who glanced up at him. "She had to go to the doctor today and she needs a nap."

"Ouchie?" he said, his brow furrowing as he checked her over. The bandage covering the site of the biopsy was under Nancy's shirt, so nothing was obviously wrong with her.

Drew went over and picked up his younger brother. "C'mon, let's go put your stuff away before dinner."

Rina came over to Ned, her arms crossed, her face like a stormcloud. Ned cast a glance over at Hannah before he swept Rina up into his arms. "What's wrong, princess? Did you have a bad day?"

Rina nodded, her rosebud lips in a pout. Her dark eyes were stormy. "Want Mama," she grumbled, laying her head against his shoulder like she already knew he wouldn't wake Nancy up for her.

Hannah gave him another apologetic smile. "I made a baked spaghetti casserole," she told Ned. "I'll bring it in. It's already cooked through; you can heat it up in the microwave or the oven. I just thought that if Nancy wasn't feeling well, she might not be up to making dinner."

Rina had brought a small fist up to her face and was rubbing at an eye with it. "Thanks," Ned told Hannah. "That will really help."

Drew returned to the kitchen with Will in tow; Drew still wore his blue and white soccer jersey, and he scrunched his nose to push his glasses back up the bridge. "Mom feeling okay?"

"Yeah, she's okay. They just had to knock her out for a little while. I'm sure she'll be awake again soon." Ned gave Drew a smile as he lowered Rina into one of the kitchen chairs.

Ned made buttery cheese toast to go with the spaghetti, sprinkling powdered garlic on half of it since Will and Rina wouldn't want that flavor in their food. He found a bag of salad mix in the refrigerator, and though he personally referred to it as rabbit food, he made a bowl for himself, another for Nancy, in case the spaghetti was too heavy on her stomach. Andrew turned down the offer. Ned gave Rina a handful of baby carrots to accompany her spaghetti, with a dollop of ranch dressing since she liked that; he washed some red and white grapes too, in case anyone wanted those.

Ned had thought his parents had to keep a lot of food in the house when _he_ was growing up. He had been shocked at how fast his family could go through a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread, or a jar of peanut butter.

Dinner was almost ready when Ned asked Andrew to take his siblings to the bathroom to make sure their hands were washed. He returned with Rina; Ned was about to ask where Will was, when he heard their youngest child burble "Mama!" in the other room.

"Will," Ned called quietly, but he could feel Nancy stirring. While she was still a little cloudy mentally, she was thinking a lot more clearly, and she rose and let Will lead her by the hand to the dinner table. Will was beaming, his hand still in hers.

_You okay?_

Nancy nodded slowly, running her tongue around inside her mouth. She was thirsty. He had a glass of iced water already sitting at her place, and she sank cautiously into her chair and took a long sip.

Hannah knew well how quickly Nancy and Ned's family could put away a casserole, and the dish was huge. When Ned wrapped up the leftovers, though, just under half of it was left. Apparently the kids hadn't been all that hungry, either.

Ned had been worried that Nancy wouldn't be up to spending time with the kids after dinner, but when he took Will for his bath and tucked him in, Nancy sat with Andrew at the kitchen table and helped him with his homework. Rina watched, as she usually did; she was fascinated by the things Andrew was studying, and seemingly couldn't wait until she was in that class too.

Nancy and Ned put Will and Rina to bed themselves, but they usually just told Andrew to brush his teeth and go to his room. They both knew that he stayed up for a while reading or working on his models, but as long as he agreed to go to bed within an hour, that was all right. That night, though, Nancy put Andrew to bed. Ned could tell that she was having trouble keeping herself under control, but she didn't start crying again until she reached their bedroom.

She had been worried and afraid all day long. It had just caught up with her again.

She went to the bathroom to brush her teeth and take a shower; the antiseptic smell of the surgery room lingered in her hair, and she wanted to scrub it away. He prepared for bed as she did, helping her avoid getting the bandage wet. Her gaze shied away from the mirror when her own body was reflected there, like she was even afraid to look at herself.

He supposed he understood. In a way, it was like her body might have betrayed her.

Low clouds had come in that afternoon, and when Ned heard the rapid hush of the rain, he waited for the sound of thunder, knowing it might send Will to their room. None followed, though, and Nancy cuddled up to him in their bed.

Dr. Karam had said the pregnancy test was negative. Neither of them had wanted another child, but he would gladly have accepted the news of another pregnancy over knowing that a tumor lurked inside her.

She was crying silently. Ned turned onto his side and held her to him, pressing his face against the crown of her head.

_Shhhh. Shhh, baby. Shhhh._

_I can't do it. How the hell am I going to get through the next week? Wondering, not knowing?_

_I don't know._

_Ned, I love them so much. I love you so much._

_I love you too, baby._

He knew she was still in some discomfort despite the painkiller the doctor had prescribed, but he felt it, that flip in her, that second when desire became intent.

_Make love to me._

He hadn't wanted to hurt her, but she had been hurting for weeks, and ever since her initial doctor's appointment neither of them had been able to bring it up. It was as though she was suddenly fragile, as though the mere act of sex could hurt her. And, he supposed, it could; her abdomen was sore, and he wasn't sure how he could really avoid that.

But she wanted him. She needed him.

Ned shuddered when her thumb brushed that soft hollow behind his left ear.

To be connected to her that way during sex was to feel almost infinite pleasure. His desire fed on hers; his pleasure echoed and fed her own until there was no boundary between them, no separation. Rarely had they had sex any other way, and Ned could hardly remember what that was like.

He didn't know if their relationship would have lasted without that fateful case, the momentary exposure, the sudden connection between them. He wanted to believe it would have, but he also knew that Nancy's fear had kept her from loving him completely until she had had no other choice, until the depths of what he felt for her had called her to him, and she had never let go since.

He had sworn to her that he would never stop loving her, that nothing she did or said would ever stop him from loving her. And it never would.

He helped her slip out of her pajamas, out of her bra and panties, and when they were both naked, he knelt between her open legs. His body sheltered hers as she slipped her hands into place to rest her thumbs just behind his earlobes, her blue eyes shimmering as she gazed up at him, and he brought his hands up to join to her the same way.

It had always felt like coming home. Tonight, though, as soon as the connection was made, what he felt most strongly was her sadness. She wanted to remember him this way; she wanted him to remember her this way, before she was wasted and pale with disease, before she could no longer enjoy feeling him inside her.

In her head, she was already dying.

_No,_ he told her, fiercely. _No. Be here with me. Always, always here with me. I can't let you go._

She drew a trembling breath and then he kissed her, a shudder trembling down his spine and hers. She knew it might hurt, but she didn't care.

But he had never, never wanted to hurt her.

They both groaned quietly when he began to stroke her clit, she in genuine pleasure and Ned in the echo of her own. His touch made gooseflesh rise on her skin, left her sensitive and quivering. He sensed that she wanted him to go down on her, and so he did, but he took his time. He was able to release the press of his thumbs just behind her ears and duck between her legs, because the connection had been made, and after years of practice, he knew how to maintain it.

She gasped in pleasure, trembling when he swiped his tongue against her clit. He knew when to obey her desire, and when to untwine his own will from hers and surprise her with something else. The sadness lingered, though, coloring her desire, weaving through it and leaving him desperate to find the other side. He wanted to give her the kind of release that would leave her senseless to anything else, at least for a little while.

He didn't want to see her claimed by something she feared so much. Not when he could do something about it.

_My love, my only love. I need you so much. Come to me. What we have, it can't end like this. What we have will never end. Baby, let it go._

But he felt it, then. The words were half-remembered, but they echoed on her lips.

_will you still love me when i got nothing but my aching soul_

_Yes. Always. You are the other half of me. You are all that makes me_ anything _._

_Without you I would never know this joy—and I would never be so terrified of losing it._ And he knew her words were true, that she fully believed them.

_Come to me. I'll be what you need._

_You always have been._

He lifted himself over her again, and together they rolled onto their sides, facing each other. The doubling, the echo trembled as her lips sought and found his. He felt her fingers on his skin and his fingers on her skin. He was both the want, the need, and the satisfaction, and so was she.

And it was like nothing else.

With every thrust she swallowed her pain and fear and concentrated only on the joy and the completion, the satisfaction of being joined to him. Her thumb brushed the hollow behind his ear as her nipples brushed his bare chest, and he drew her in, protecting her the way he always had when he knew she was in danger.

_Remember me this way. Remember how afraid I was? You were the only one. Always and ever, the only one. Help me let it go._

They were not merely who they had been, and even though her fear and anxiety were bleeding through, they were not who they would be. They could only be who they were, nothing less—and she was perfect.

She whimpered against his skin with his thrusts, each one provoking another breathless cry. He could feel every echo, and it was as though every time they were like this, it had all been made for this.

They were more. She was more than her fear. She was his world.

He brushed one thumb behind her ear as he used the other to rub against her clit, and she gasped, trembling in pleasure. She nipped at his lower lip, and even though the soreness in her abdomen flared up again when their hips rocked together, he could feel it.

And so he rolled onto her, holding her hips still as he drove into her, kissing and stroking that hollow behind her ear with the tip of his tongue. She sobbed as quietly as she could, her skin, the slick hollow of her sex tingling and sensitive with arousal, and Ned's own breathing was harsh. She trembled, her sex tightening around his as he nuzzled against that hollow again.

_Like a slow dance._

They had been children then. The idea of death had been impossible.

_Stay with me. I'm so afraid._

He kissed her, feeling her strain and rock under him as she responded to his thrusts, one of her hands coming up so she could bury her fingers in his hair. She let out a soft desperate groan when he broke the kiss, but instead of nuzzling against her neck again, he pulled back to look down into her eyes.

_I will always be with you, Nan. Always._

She blinked, sending a pair of large tears down her cheeks. Everything about her life had made her strong, had driven fear and weakness out of her. She had to be fearless at her job; she was the mother to three children, children who looked up to them and always depended on them to be strong. Seeing her like this, knowing how afraid she was, made him feel terrible.

But he was hers.

_You'll be fine, Nan. You will. I know you will._

There was so much they hadn't done yet. So much she still wanted to do, to show them. But one fact she could never doubt. Ned knew how much she loved him and their children. He could see it in her, could feel it in her, and he would always know it.

That didn't mean it would be any easier to let her go.

He kissed her again as she began to writhe and whimper, finally coming through the fear and sadness to find her release, losing herself in how good it felt to make love. He was careful to put her in as little pain as he could, but she wrapped her legs around him, her thumbs still resting against those notches just beneath his ears as they both climaxed. Feeling her pleasure at the same time as his own overwhelmed him, and it left them both speechless, still rocking gently together.

When he finally caught his breath, he kissed the tip of her nose, her cheek, and then that soft hollow again, feeling her shudder under him at the accompanying frisson of arousal. He pulled back and she blinked up at him, her blue eyes soft and wet.

"I love you," he whispered, the first words he had spoken aloud to her since they had gone to their bedroom. His voice was hushed and deep.

Nancy swallowed, then smiled at him. "I love you," she whispered. "More than I could ever say."

How could he ever let her go? He couldn't. Oh, he couldn't. And he never would.

\--

Nancy supposed it shouldn't be so strange to her, that sometimes she had hunches about what was about to happen—and that they came true, more often than not. After all, she could read her husband's thoughts. Anything might be possible.

She was in her company car, on her way to a small town about an hour outside Chicago, when her phone rang. She pressed the button on the steering wheel to put the caller on speaker.

"This is Nancy Nickerson." It had been a long time since anyone had called her by her maiden name, and because she had been married for the entirety of her career, she was known professionally by her husband's name too.

"Good afternoon, Nancy. This is Dr. Karam."

The anxious feeling climbed up her throat, and Nancy scanned the road ahead of her, searching for a place to pull over. She was glad that she wasn't around any of her coworkers; while they knew she had been to the doctor a few times, she had just told them that it was thanks to a lingering stomach bug, and then she endured their helpful suggestions about family remedies and foods that would be sure to brighten her right up.

She knew that if the worst was true, they would find out. She just didn't look forward to the looks of pity and sympathy on their faces, soft cautious voices, the way they would treat her.

"Hello," Nancy replied, pulling onto the paved apron well away from the white line marking the edge of the highway. Her hands were shaking. From her anxiety, she knew that soon Ned would know something was wrong.

Her mind was blank, paralyzed by fear. She didn't want to let herself hope, but it was hard to even breathe.

"I know I said it would be a week, and I don't have the final results back yet, but the pathologist went over the sample and said that cancerous cells were present. We need to operate, as soon as possible."

If she had been standing, she would have fallen to her knees. As it was, she slumped in her seat, her sight blurring with tears. She would have lost control of the car if she hadn't pulled it over and parked it. Her hand went to her side, to the pain she felt there.

She had known something was wrong. She had just prayed that it couldn't be this.

"Nancy?"

"Yeah," Nancy replied, her voice wobbling. She cleared her throat and tried to compose herself, but she just felt numb and afraid. "When? When would you operate?"

"I'm going to set a tentative date, and once the final results come back, I'll have a better idea what we're dealing with. One of my colleagues specializes in surgery to treat these types of cancers, and I'll forward the results on to her so we can discuss them and find you a surgery date and time."

The rest of the call passed by in a blur; Dr. Karam said to call her back with any questions or concerns, but Nancy just felt blank and so, so afraid. Halfway through the phone call, she could feel Ned's concern.

As soon as she hung up with the doctor, her phone rang again. Ned was in the breakroom at his workplace, pacing, agitated. She could see it just as clearly as if it were happening right in front of her.

"Nan?"

"It's cancer," she said, telling him what he already knew, and then she began to sob.

Her first impulse was to somehow get herself back under control and finish her work trip, but Ned insisted that she call her boss and tell him something, even if it was that her stomach bug had gotten worse, and take the rest of the day off. She was finding it hard to think straight; she had been in shock before, and she recognized the feeling, like she was trying to move through impossibly cold water.

It all spiraled out before her, sprawling and hideous, the way it would go from here. The surgery and then the waiting, the shadow that would never leave her, the unshakable belief that no matter what they did it would still lurk inside her, smaller than she could feel or see, and rise up for her again. She had the touch of death on her. They could slice off bits of her until they took it all, down to the last molecule, the last breath, and still it would linger.

"Nan? Okay, stay right there. I'm on the way."

"Okay," she said mechanically, realizing only then that he had been asking her if she wanted him to pick her up. She hadn't responded.

He was upset. She could feel it, distantly.

A part of her wanted to turn the car around, to go to the elementary school Drew and Rina attended, to get them out of class and just hold them until she stopped shaking. She wanted all of them. She wanted to tell them how sorry she was, how selfish she had been to bring a child, _three_ children, into the world when she had known something like this might happen. To be there for them and then leave them like this, the same way she had been.

_Ned, oh my God, oh my God_

_Stay there. Stay there. Shhhh._

Inside the car suddenly felt too tight, too hot. With a surge of strength she hadn't thought she possessed, she wrenched the door open and stumbled out onto the grass strip at the side of the road. Her face was wet; her tears had dampened her collar, and she jerked open her blazer, choking, gasping for breath. She was only able to take a few steps before she collapsed to her knees in the tall grass, throwing her head back to look up at the sky, a steady stream of tears flowing down her temples. The blue was muddled, dirtied with the swirl of nascent rainclouds.

She couldn't form any words. All she felt was panic and fear and pleading, but she didn't know what was left to beg for. The crucial moment had passed. All their prayers and hopes had been for nothing. It wasn't benign.

The final test results weren't back.

A floundering, panicked part of her latched onto that. _Maybe the pathologist misread it. There's still a chance. Just a chance, but it's better than nothing. Maybe..._

But she couldn't hope. Dr. Karam would have told her if that was a chance worth any thought at all. She had always said that the fears Nancy had were premature, but not today.

Her mother had been through this.

At that thought Nancy began to sob again, hanging her head. She had been so small that she hadn't seen what it was putting her parents through, not really. She didn't remember how they had told her what was going on, only the repeated refrain, _Mommy's sick, Mommy's sick. She needs to rest. She needs quiet._

She had just wanted to be with her mother. Instead they had sent her outside to play, to keep the house quiet so Mommy could rest. The more still she was, the more they begged Nancy for quiet, the more Nancy had felt like shouting. Maybe Mommy wouldn't have been so sleepy if they hadn't kept her in bed all day. She had just wanted to play with her.

Nancy hadn't understood and she had just been sad and confused and frustrated, but it hadn't done her any good. Because here she was.

She had just wanted her mother to fight, but there was nothing _to_ fight; she realized that now. All she could truly fight now was herself. And she needed to be strong for Ned and for her babies. Her mother had tried. Every night when it had been time for Nancy to go to bed, whenever she had been able to do it, she had combed Nancy's silky blonde hair and given her a kiss on the crown of her head. On the nights when her mother had been too weak and her father had needed to do it, she hadn't realized until later how upset he was.

He had lost the love of his life when Catherine Drew had died. Just the way Ned would.

And she would lose him. She would lose the comfort and support and love that had been a part of her for so long when she lost him.

"No," she whimpered aloud, wiping at her wet cheeks, her fingers shaking. "No, please no. Not yet. Please, not yet. I can't go yet."

Nancy wasn't sure how much time had passed when Ned arrived. In the meantime, two motorists had stopped to ask if she was all right, if she was having car trouble. That had brought her back to herself enough to call her boss as Ned had suggested, to let him know he would need to send someone else out. He asked if she was all right, and Nancy admitted that she didn't know, but she would give him an update in the morning.

Ned brought his car to a squealing halt in front of his wife's, swinging out of his car almost immediately. Nancy was sitting in the passenger seat with the door open, facing out, waiting for the rain to fall.

"Baby, I'm so sorry."

She brought her head up, her eyes swimming, and when he reached for her she wrapped herself around him, trembling. He held her so tight, burying his face against her neck.

He was hurting for her, and Nancy didn't even have to imagine what losing him like this would feel like, because she could feel it in him. She was a part of him, and he of her. Not a single day went by that they didn't speak to each other, either in their minds or on the phone or in person. They were best friends, so close that they didn't just finish each other's sentences, they finished each other's thoughts. She wouldn't be complete without him.

And Ned had built his life, his _world_ , around her and what they shared. To face an end to it was beyond even his strength.

"I want to go home," she whispered.

"Okay," he said softly. "I'll take you home. Leave the car here?"

She sniffled and tried to clear her throat. She felt so lost. "I'll ask my boss if he can send someone out to get it."

He held her hand all the way home, their hands joined across the console between their seats, and she couldn't stop crying. She knew Ned was profoundly upset at seeing her the way she was, but she couldn't move. She couldn't think.

She moved through the rest of the day in a fog. So, so many days lately had felt like this; she mechanically took her makeup off, and then found herself sitting on the couch in the living room in front of a quiet television set, in sweatpants and a loose t-shirt, without quite knowing how she had gotten there. Every now and then she was suddenly panicked and wanted to call their children, wanted them home _now_ , but she also didn't want them to see her like this.

If Ned hadn't been there, if he hadn't been with her, it would have been worse. She knew that. He brought her something to drink, something to eat; he held her, shushed her and rocked her, and while she knew it hurt him when she started to cry again, she also couldn't help it.

"Dad," she whispered. "I have to tell Dad."

Ned moved back, then cupped her face. "Sweetheart, we don't know for sure..."

"So we just won't tell anyone and hope it just goes away?" She gasped in a breath.

_You know that's not it._

_It's because you can't stand the thought. Ned, we have to be realistic._

_And I am being realistic. I refuse to believe that this—that it will end that way. You're going to be okay. You're going to be fine. We'll get the best doctors, Nan._

Ned had already taken time off work to care for her, and that already made her feel guilty. While they had savings, they weren't prepared for the kind of skyrocketing hospital bills her diagnosis could cause. And if Nancy became too weak or sick to work, if she left him with three mouths to feed, plus his own...

_Shhh. We have insurance. Stop doing this, Nan. Stop it. Don't invent problems before they happen._

Nancy wiped her wet eyes, nestling into him. She dreaded the thought of telling her father; she dreaded the thought of the sympathetic expression on Hannah's face, of how Bess and George would react. She had put off their questions, telling them that she was just feeling bad; they were concerned about her, though.

Their children.

Nancy heard a whimper escape her as she began to cry again. She couldn't imagine how she was going to get through this, not even with him.

_Hey_. Ned's voice was gentle. _Do you really think you survived all you have just to be taken down like this? We're going to get through this the same way we always have, together. Always._

Nancy's lips turned up in a humorless smile. _Until the end._

_There will be no end for us, Nan. I won't let it happen. And if you're ever taken from me, if I'm taken from you... then we won't be apart for long. I believe that with all my heart. I can't lose you._ He touched her chest, just over her heart. _Because I will never let you go._

Slowly, by degrees, Nancy began to relax; slowly that feeling that some fluttering panic was stuck in her ribs began to fade a little. Thinking about dinner was unreal, but their children would be hungry. Once he was sure she was okay, Ned went to the store for hamburger meat, buns, toppings, chips and baked beans, cupcake mix and frosting and paper liner cups so Nancy could make them with her children if she felt up to it. She wanted to. Just in case.

Just in case it was one of the last times.

By mutual agreement they decided that they would wait until her surgery was scheduled to talk to the children about what was going on. They could be honest, then; they could say that the doctor would be taking the sickness out of her, and then she would need to rest for a while.

As soon as Hannah brought the children inside, though, Nancy felt her eyes well up with tears, and she knelt to hug her daughter and youngest son. She sniffled and told them with a smile what they would be having for dinner, and they both smiled, but they could tell she was upset.

"And maybe after dinner we can make cupcakes."

" _Cupcakes!_ " Will clapped his hands. "Mama _cupcakes! Yesssss!"_

Hannah had brought over a pot of soup, which Nancy accepted gratefully, hoping they could eat that the following night. She gave Nancy a hug before she left, and Nancy thought of it again. Telling the people she loved...

She wasn't sure why it made her feel so anxious. But she had to admit that she had never felt eager about sharing weakness with anyone. In all honesty, if Ned hadn't been connected to her the way he was, her impulse would have been to hide it from him, too. She could see how the knowledge weighed on him, how it broke his heart.

After dinner Nancy let Rina help her measure the ingredients, and she gave Will the job of stirring the frosting and selecting the toppings for the cupcakes. Ned was at the kitchen table with Drew, helping him with his homework; whenever Nancy passed near him, their hands found each other, unerring.

_I love you, baby._

_I love you too. So much._

Each of them was allowed a single finger-swipe through the leftover batter before Nancy put the bowl away. Will and Rina carefully topped each yellow cupcake with chocolate frosting, then decorated them liberally with sprinkles.

Ned was only able to bring himself to eat one, and Nancy looked over at him, letting herself feel what he was feeling. He was miserable. He just wanted to wrap her in his arms; he wanted to deal with what was threatening her, and he was so depressed at the knowledge that he couldn't do anything.

Drew only had one, too. Rina ate three, and Nancy thought she would never go to sleep. Will finished one, then gave his mother a frosting smeared grin.

"And that's our cue. Time for a bath, big boy," she told him, lifting him into her arms. She had to hide her wince when his knee brushed against that aching place in her abdomen.

Getting Will to stay in bed was a chore; getting Rina to stay in her room was worse. Nancy had towel-dried and combed out Rina's pale hair after her own bath, and when she looked down and imagined planting a kiss against the crown of that golden head, tears welled up in her eyes again.

Nancy returned to the kitchen after that. Andrew was running his hand through his hair in a gesture he and Ned both shared. His mouth was set in a moue of frustration, and when he brought his head up, looking up at his mother, she could see a slight trembling in his lips.

No matter how they did it, it was going to hurt. No matter how they explained to their children what was going on, she already knew how upset they would be. And just like Ned, they would be left with no one to fight.

In their bed later that night, after they had finished watching television in the living room and headed to their quiet bedroom, Nancy cuddled close to her husband, her lips pressed against his breastbone. The connection between them was most clear when one held fingertips against the hollows behind the other's ears, but any contact, skin to skin, deepened their connection.

_You've been thinking about her all day._

_I can't help it. I know how awful it's going to be for them..._

_But you don't,_ Ned pointed out. _You weren't ten years old, like Andrew. You weren't even six, like Rina._

Nancy closed her eyes, a tear slipping from beneath her lids. The house was so still; even Drew's bedtime had been an hour ago.

She couldn't remember making cupcakes with her mother, or cooking with her mother at all. She could barely remember her mother _well_. The clearest mental picture she had was of her mother in bed, propped up by pillows, moving slowly, like she was dreaming. Like her attention was turned inward, toward something Nancy couldn't see, couldn't touch.

"How could she leave me," Nancy whispered, her voice trembling. "And how can I leave them? When they told me she was gone... oh, Ned, I screamed. Every night I waited for her to brush my hair and give me a kiss, and I was so angry when Dad told me he would have to do it instead. I just wanted her back. I thought she was hiding somewhere; I thought she would come back. There's so much I wish she could have seen, but I... I won't even get to see them grow up..."

Ned wrapped her in his arms again, holding her tight to him. _Shhhh. Shh. Baby..._

Nancy was startled, her heart pounding, when she heard a scream from one of the other bedrooms. "Mama!" Rina wailed. _"Mama!"_

Both of them scrambled out of bed, terrified of what they would find, of what would make Rina scream like that. Nancy hastily wiped her tear-streaked face as she wrenched open their bedroom door. The door to Rina's room was already open; her dim nightlight cast a soft glow out into the hallway.

At the same time Nancy and Ned both spotted the form standing over Rina's bed, but just as quickly they relaxed. Andrew had come to his sister's room when she screamed, and was shushing her; when Rina saw Nancy, though, her small face shining with tears, she immediately scrambled out of bed and ran to her, wrapping her arms around her and holding her tight. Nancy sank down, pulling her daughter into her arms.

"Shhh. Shh, sweetheart. It's all right. Did you have a bad dream?" Nancy brushed Rina's hair back from her wet cheeks.

Andrew made a soft noise. It almost sounded like a warning.

"Mama don't leave," Rina sobbed, holding her tighter. "Mama no _don't leave don't leave nooooooooo_..."

Will began to call out from his own room, and Ned went after him. Nancy's eyes were welling up again, though, and she had trouble pushing Rina far enough back to see into her face. "Baby, I'm not going anywhere," she murmured, her voice trembling a little.

"Yes you _are!_ " Andrew burst out, and for the first time Nancy realized that Andrew's cheeks were wet too. "Just like our grandmother! Why do you keep _lying_ to us?"

Rina was whimpering, her eyes red-rimmed, her slick upper lip trembling. "Don't go," she whispered.

Nancy was stricken as she looked from Andrew to Rina. "I don't understand," she whispered.

"Cancer," Andrew said, muttering it like a profane word. "That's what the doctor told you, isn't it."

Ned had come back in with Will in his arms, and Nancy could feel him blanch when she did. She took a long breath that didn't serve to steady her. "How do you know that?" she breathed.

Andrew swallowed, flushing. _Because I lied._

\--

Neither of them had seen it, because they didn't want to. Nancy hadn't wanted it to be true.

And that was all it had taken.

_When I was little, when you asked me if I could do this... you didn't want me to say yes. You were so afraid of what would happen if I said yes. Men-in-black. Testing, kidnapping. Scary things. I could see them in your head. You wanted me to say no. So I said no. Because I was so, so afraid of what would happen if I said yes. You were thinking,_ If they find out, they might snatch him and we'll never see him again, never see any of them again. _So I hid it from everyone. I hid it from you because I knew it would just upset you._

Nancy took a deep breath. Rina was looking straight at Andrew. She could hear him.

_And—_

_And when Rina was old enough, I explained it to her._

Will was squirming to get down, obviously intent on investigating Rina's toybox. He wasn't treating their silence as unusual, but he also didn't seem to be paying attention to either of his siblings. She didn't think he could hear them.

_He's not quite old enough yet._ Andrew pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

Nancy let out a long, slow breath. Rina had finally relaxed, marginally, but she was still on her mother's lap. She looked from her older brother back to her mother.

_But he almost is._ Ned had crouched on the floor beside Nancy, frozen by the same fear that was paralyzing her.

Andrew nodded.

_I'm sorry._ Rina took a noisy breath, then swiped under her nose with the back of her hand. _I couldn't be quiet. I'm sorry._ She glanced back at Andrew again, then back at Nancy.

Andrew had been shushing her, even though he knew exactly why she was upset. Because they both knew. They both knew what Nancy had been thinking about.

Ned held his hands up, gesturing for Andrew to come to him, as Nancy embraced Rina hard, both of them upset again. Andrew let out his breath in a long sigh as Ned wrapped him in a hard hug.

_Has anyone approached you?_

Nancy barely registered that Andrew responded to Ned's question with a shake of his head. She was gently stroking Rina's hair, thinking of how she had combed that fine hair a few hours earlier, thinking of her mother doing the same. How hard it had been to keep her expression from showing how she was feeling.

_I love you, babies. I love all of you so much._ Nancy sniffled. "Come here, Will," she called, and he came over to the space between his parents as they all hugged each other. Will didn't know why, but he was happy to be held, happy to be up past his bedtime with his family.

_Mama..._

Nancy's eyes closed, a pair of cool tears slipping down her cheeks as she heard Rina's plaintive voice in her head, trembling on the edge of panic. _Did you know, earlier?_

Andrew shook his head, his own eyes gleaming behind his glasses. _I knew something was wrong. But, sometimes... sometimes it's harder to_ hear _you. You were so upset, though..._

Rina burrowed against Nancy's chest, sniffling loudly. _I don't want you to leave either,_ Rina thought. _Please, Mama._

It was all Nancy could do, to keep herself from breaking down. She rested her head on Ned's shoulder, her arm wrapped around Rina and touching Drew, her other arm around Will and touching Ned.

Finally she found her voice. "I'm sick," she whispered, her eyes still closed. "My mother was sick a long time ago, with something like this. The doctor is going to take it out of me and then I'll be better again."

"But she's going to need rest," Ned said, looking at their children. "Just like when you broke your arm last year, Rina. It will take her a little while to get better again, but she will."

Drew frowned, clearly conflicted. He could feel the dissonance between what Ned was saying, and what Nancy was feeling.

Nancy took a deep breath. "I will get better," she said, wishing with all her heart that it was true. She reached up and stroked Rina's hair again. "I'm not ready to leave all this, either. I hate so much that I'm putting you through this, because I love all of you so much. I love you with all my heart. I'm so sorry."

Rina sniffled. "Can I sleep with you tonight?"

"Yeah, baby. You all can."

The California king had seemed an exorbitant purchase at the time, but they had bought it for nights like this. Andrew slept beside his father, Will slept between his siblings, and Rina slept beside Nancy, nestled against her, her fist clenched in the fabric of Nancy's sleep shirt even after she had fallen asleep. She couldn't let go.

Nancy dropped a kiss on Rina's head, then reached out for her husband. Their fingers interlaced over Will, who understood his siblings' anxiety better than he truly understood what had caused it.

_I love you._

_Always._

\--

In the morning, the day Nancy was scheduled to go in for her surgery, once breakfast was finished and the plates cleared, backpacks packed and lunches gathered, Nancy sat down on the couch in the living room. She was feeling shaky, but she was trying to keep as steady as she could. Even though Andrew and Caterina would know how she was feeling, it was far worse for them when she showed it.

During the consultation before the surgery, Dr. Karam had told her that every indication was good that they had caught it early. She hadn't seen any sign that the cancer had spread, and the area itself appeared to be quite small. She had established a baseline and would be monitoring her blood tests. Because Nancy was young, the surgeon had recommended that they only remove one ovary and fallopian tube, just to prevent premature menopause, at least as much as they could. If her other ovary developed a mass, they would remove that one as well.

"I know it's not the best situation," Dr. Karam had said, "but on a scale, we really do think you're incredibly lucky. And I know it's strange to hear the words 'cancer' and 'lucky' in the same sentence, but if we had waited, if you hadn't exhibited symptoms so early... well, your prognosis would not be this good. Once you're recovered from this surgery, there's no reason to think you won't have a full life, Nancy."

Nancy had known what the doctor hadn't quite said. If she could develop cancer in one ovary, she could develop cancer in the other. If her mother had passed her the gene, her next self-exam might reveal a new lump. This surgery might be the first.

But it might be the last.

Her children climbed up on the couch around her. "Be good for Grandpa and Grandma," she told them, wrapping her arms around them. Ned's parents had agreed to pick up the children from preschool and elementary school and watch them overnight; Dr. Karam had said that if all went well Nancy might be able to go home, but she also might need to spend the night in the hospital.

She couldn't believe how scared she was, how afraid she had been since Dr. Karam's expression had shifted so subtly into that frown. Only weeks ago. It had only been weeks ago.

"We will," Andrew answered her softly.

"I love you so much."

"Love you, Mama," Will answered, climbing up on her lap to plant a smacking kiss on her cheek.

_I love you._ Rina's dark eyes were swimming in tears.

_I love you. Please come home._ When Nancy looked up at her oldest son, she saw the strength that Ned had passed down to him—and the vulnerability at the core. He could be stronger for other people than he could be for himself.

_Come here_ , Nancy thought, and all three of them moved close to her, Will because he was being drawn that way by his siblings. Nancy hugged them, closing her eyes.

_Please, not yet. Not yet._

Soon Edith arrived, and Nancy's anxiety rose another notch. Telling her father and Hannah, Ned's parents, Bess and George, even her boss—every time, the horror and shock she had seen on their faces had echoed and deepened her own, and it would have been funny otherwise, how _she_ had to comfort _them_ instead of the other way around. Her father had just pulled her into his arms and held her, rocking her, and they had both cried. "No," he had whispered against her hair. "No, Nancy. You're too young, she was so young. No, it can't be true. Please, no."

Edith gave her a small quivering smile. None of them had wanted to disrupt Drew and Rina's schedule, or Will's, but they were just as sure that none of them would be able to concentrate until it was over. Sending them to school was a pointless exercise, but at least it would give them something else to pretend to focus on.

"Ready?" Edith asked her grandchildren.

Ned came in then, his face pale. He exchanged another weak smile with his mother. "It's time," he told Nancy softly. "We have to get going."

She hugged their children one last time, and then Ned gave each of them a hug before he helped his mother strap Will into his booster seat. She watched until Edith's car was out of sight, then took a deep breath and reached for her small overnight bag. Ned picked it up before she could, carrying it out to the car for her.

All the way to the hospital, for as long as they could, Ned held hands with her. He had taken the entire day off, and he would be at the hospital waiting for her the whole time.

Checking in took forever, and no time at all. She wanted it over with, but she was so terribly afraid. Afraid she wouldn't wake up, after; afraid the surgeon would open her up and find that the ultrasound had been wrong, and it had spread.

When she had been young, she had wanted her mother back so much. If something went terribly wrong today, she would be with her mother again.

She missed her so much, she always had, but she wasn't ready yet.

Her father met them at the hospital, and hugged his daughter for a long, long time. "I love you," he murmured, his voice almost painfully grave. "I love you so much, baby. You're going to be okay."

When Nancy pulled back, her eyes were wet, but she nodded anyway. "I'll see you after," she said softly. "I love you, Dad."

He nodded. He and Ned were both pale, and while they tried to put a brave face on it, their fear was obvious to her because she shared it.

Ned stayed with her until the moment when the nurse said it was time to leave. He squeezed her hand tighter, leaning down to brush his lips against hers.

"I love you," he whispered. "I love you, Nancy. And you're strong. You're going to beat this. You're going to be fine. I'll see you soon."

"I love you," she whispered, blinking another tear down her cheek. _Don't leave me. Please don't leave me._

_I'll never leave you._

And he stayed with her in her thoughts, telling her how much he loved her, how strong she was, how much all of them loved her. Her heart was beating so hard as the anesthesiologist came in.

_I love you_ , she told her husband.

_I love you_ , he replied, the last words she heard as the black began to creep in. _And I will wait for you, Nan. Always._

\--

The day was warm, too warm. Andrew looked down at the black fabric covering his legs, listening to the soft murmur of the crowd around them. He wasn't quite sure why he hadn't expected so many people.

He felt nervous, and he wasn't really sure why. The rehearsal had been easy.

_Congratulations, River Heights High grads!_ The banner fluttered over the stage, and Andrew heard the rustle of waving programs as people tried to fan themselves. At least _they_ weren't in graduation robes, Andrew thought sourly. He could already feel sweat beginning to prickle at the nape of his neck.

It was hard to believe he had actually made it. In the fall he would be heading off to Emerson College, his parents' alma mater. He was excited, but a part of him felt a little nervous at the idea of being so far away from his family.

_It's not so long_ , he heard his father's voice, faintly in his head. Although Andrew had learned how to keep his thoughts shielded when he wanted to, he wasn't particularly trying right now. _And we'll still be just a thought away._

Andrew had to smile at that. His thoughts had been able to reach home even during the senior class trip to Washington; the distance between River Heights and Emersonville was nothing, in comparison.

Andrew had ended his high school career third in his class, which pleased him. The valedictorian and salutatorian had to stand up in front of the crowd and deliver speeches, and Andrew couldn't imagine anything he would have wanted less. He sat through the separate graduation speaker too, listening as he was exhorted to do his best and stick to his dreams, and he and all his classmates would live their best lives.

Andrew rather doubted that. A few of his fellow classmates, he had overheard, were definitely planning on spending their entire first freshman semester finding out exactly how drunk they could get; Ned knew his son, and he had let him drink a few beers at home, just to take the mystique out of it.

They were so proud of him, the cluster of his family in the bleachers waiting to watch him cross the stage.

And when he did, when he heard his name called, each syllable precise and separate—"An-drew James Nick-er-son"—he filed up on stage, flashing a smile at the vice principal, the principal, taking his diploma. He scrunched his nose to push his glasses up the bridge before remembering that they weren't there; after exams he had taken out his contact lenses to give his eyes a break from the hours of studying, but he had put them back in for his graduation ceremony.

And he spotted his family in the crowd, tossing a little wave. They beamed in response. His little sister wasn't so little anymore; Rina was thirteen and already planning on applying to the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. Will was eleven and impatient to finish with middle school so he could follow his brother and sister to high school, and then to Emerson. Beside them were his grandparents, his father's parents and his Grandpa Drew and Hannah. His father.

His mother, at the end, waved again, a wide grin on her face.

That was what had given him the most pause, when he had been considering whether to attend Emerson or not. His mother had come through her surgery seven years earlier; five years ago, she had been in the hospital again, to have what she told him was surgery "just in case." That had been the last one. As far as the doctors knew, she would be okay now. She would be there to see it all, just as she had wanted.

_I'm so proud of you, Andrew. I love you so much._

Andrew's father looped his arm around his mother's shoulders and gave her a hug, and Andrew swallowed, giving them all a smile before heading back to his seat. He had seen how close he had been to losing his mother, and every day he could spend with her, he was grateful.

Even so, a part of him had been hopeful. His father had met his mother when he was just about Andrew's age. Andrew just didn't know if he would ever meet anyone he could love as much as his parents loved each other, or if it was even possible. He didn't know if he would ever have the bond they shared with anyone else.

He couldn't help hoping, though.

Afterward, once the whole sweaty ordeal was over, Andrew suffered the round of hugs and congratulations, eagerly unzipping his robe to reveal the polo and khakis underneath. Grandpa Drew said his oldest grandson deserved something special for making it all the way through high school, and he had arranged a table for them at a really nice restaurant in Chicago.

In the backseat of the van on the way there, his mother gave him a brief hug. "I can't believe it," she murmured. "My little boy all grown up. I'm so proud of you, Andrew."

"Thanks, Mom." He gave her a lopsided smile, the same one his father sometimes gave her. _I'm so glad you were here to see it._

Her eyes glazed with sudden tears. _Me too, baby. Me too._


End file.
